I asked my daughter to show me where the walker had been kept on previous days. She pointed toward the closet. Then the laundry room. Then the corner behind a chair in the hallway.
She remembered every place.
That detail stayed with me.
She had been noticing because she had needed it.
I took out my phone and began writing down what she told me: the dates she remembered, where the walker had been moved, when she had fallen, and who had been present.
Her stepmother watched me.
“What are you doing?”
“Making sure I remember this correctly.”
“You’re making this bigger than it is.”
“No,” I said. “I’m making sure I don’t make it smaller than it is.”
My daughter looked at me then.
For the first time since I had entered the room, she looked relieved.
I helped her stand again. This time she did it without leaning on me.
